Imagine if you could’ve bought the keys to the Internet in 1994! A tectonic shift at the intersection of finance & technology approaches, where the very fabric of the global capital markets are being transformed at the atomic level for the first time since the advent of fungible currency is enabling such and opportunity now. Smart contract and the blockchain allow the creation of global P2P capital markets. Purchasing Veritas tokens is analogous to purchasing the keys to the most monumental paradigm shift since the advent of the Internet!

Over the last quarter I've been warning about the significant weakness in retailers and the retail real estate that most occupy (links supplied below). Now, Bloomberg reports: Manhattan Landlords Are Offering...

Note: Subscribers should reference the paywall material here for stocks that should give a good risk/reward scenario for bearish trades.
The Trump administration's legislative outlook is effectively a political desert, with...

Donald Trump's recent Tweet discusses how Russia has gotten stronger at the behest of President Obama.
For eight years Russia "ran over" President Obama, got stronger and stronger, picked-off Crimea and…

There are a lot more Muni bonds than subprime mortgages - I told you so

I warned about the Muni market
last year. I warned that the monoline model couldn't stand the test of time (36
years is not time, that is barely 1 generation). I warned that munis will
weaken already emaciated monolines and cause significant stress on banks. In
the beginning of the 6th month of this year, we already have 300% more
defaults than all of last year - and things are getting much worse, not better.
Before we go on to the article though, a quick recap for those that don't
follow me:

The amount
of municipal bonds that have defaulted this year is already more than triple of
what it was for all of 2007.

And who
could doubt there's more bad news on the way?

So far
this year, $736 million in municipal bonds have defaulted. That doesn't
necessarily mean they didn't pay investors; they may have just drawn down
reserves. That's what happens just before they stop making payments to
bondholders.

During all
of 2007, only $226 million in municipal bonds defaulted, according to the May
edition of the Distressed Debt Securities newsletter, published in Miami Lakes,
Florida.

That $736
million is nowhere near the record for municipal bond defaults, to be sure. The
record year, if you're counting, was 1991, when almost $5 billion went bust.
That's still small potatoes compared with what happens over in the corporate
bond market, where $36.6 billion blew up in 2006 and almost $24 billion in
2007.

But wait a
minute: Municipal bonds never default, do they? Or at least this is how they
are perceived by individual investors, right?

We're
probably going to see a lot more munis default this year and in the years to
come, because of the subprime crisis and, maybe, just maybe, because of the
high price of a barrel of oil.

The
hangover from the collapse in real estate prices is going to be a boom in
so-called dirt-bond defaults.

These are
bonds sold by municipalities to build the infrastructure for housing
developments, and are backed by the taxes paid by all the new residents who are
going to move in. If no residents move in, or too few do, the bonds aren't
repaid.

Of the 30
bond issues that have defaulted so far this year, more than half are from
issuers in two of the states that have figured prominently in all tales of the
housing bust: 10 in Florida and seven in California.

Consider
the $50 million in special assessment bonds sold by the Monterra Community
Development District in Broward County, Florida, for example. On May 7, the
district disclosed that it had tapped its $1,279,200 reserve fund for
$1,211,727.11.

You can
just stop right there and know that this story is bound to be a sad one.

These
particular bonds were sold by the district in 2006 in a limited offering. The
bonds were unrated, and sold in minimum denominations of $100,000. The bonds
carried a 5.125 per cent coupon due in 2014, and were priced to yield 5.198 per
cent.

Remember
Colorado
The Monterra development is located in Cooper City, which is about 20 miles
north of Miami and has a population of almost 30,000. Of the 10 Florida bonds
that defaulted this year, all were sold by community development districts, and
all within the last four years.

The big
jump we are going to see in the number of such municipal bond defaults this
year won't be limited to Florida and California, but will include all those
places where the high tide of real estate mania has now receded.

This isn't
an uncommon phenomenon after housing busts. In the past, the damage was usually
confined to certain states where the boom was craziest, such as Colorado in the
1980s.

More
bondholders are going to be affected this time around because the housing
collapse is more national rather than regional or isolated, and because of the
relatively recent development of so many "exurbs,'' as chronicled, for
example, by New York Times columnist David Brooks in his 2004 book, ‘On
Paradise Drive'.

Three-hour
commutes
These are the suburbs beyond the suburbs, where Americans have moved to enjoy
the good life, commute (usually) be damned. Not too long ago, the newspapers
seemed to be filled with stories about people who gladly commuted two and even
three hours each way for affordable real estate. Most people knew actual
examples of such hearty souls. I wonder how much gasoline at $4-plus a gallon
will dent the growth, and tax base, of such communities.

It's not
just the price of gasoline that is going to make the nation's many far-flung
communities less attractive. On May 28, Bloomberg carried a story detailing how
the increase in the price of jet fuel was causing airlines to curtail service
throughout the country.

Maybe we'll have to reconsider this whole
flight-from-the-coasts idea that got such attention a few years ago.